Design and comparison of MHEMT and diode based K-band sub-harmonically pumped mixer MMICs

Author

Bhavsar, Maulik L. ; Bhattacharya, A.N. ; Arora, Raj Kumar

Author_Institution

Space Applic. Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, India

fYear

2014

fDate

15-17 Dec. 2014

Firstpage

266

Lastpage

269

Abstract

This paper presents the design, simulation and measured results of two types of K-band monolithic sub-harmonically pumped (SHP) mixers. The mixers are designed using 0.13um metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (mHEMT) process from OMMIC foundry. In this paper, performances of mHEMT based SHP resistive mixer and anti-parallel diode pair based SHP mixer are compared. In both the designs radio frequency (RF) filter, intermediate frequency (IF) filter and local oscillator (LO) balun are kept same for rational comparison. Chip size is 2.35mm × 1.74mm for both the mixers. Measured (on-wafer) conversion loss for mHEMT based SHP resistive mixer is 8.2dB and it is 9.4dB for anti-parallel diode pair based SHP mixer. MHEMT based SHP resistive mixer is found better in performance for conversion loss and input 1dB compression point. However, anti-parallel diode pair based SHP mixer is much superior in rejection of second harmonic of LO. These circuits are realized for S-band (2-3 GHz) to K-band (20-22 GHz) on-board satellite up-converter.

Keywords

MMIC mixers; baluns; high electron mobility transistors; radiofrequency filters; IF filter; K-band monolithic SHP mixers; K-band monolithic sub-harmonically pumped mixers; K-band on-board satellite up-converter; LO balun; OMMIC foundry; RF filter; S-band; anti-parallel diode pair based SHP mixer; frequency 2 GHz to 3 GHz; frequency 20 GHz to 22 GHz; intermediate frequency filter; local oscillator balun; loss 8.2 dB; loss 9.4 dB; mHEMT based SHP resistive mixer; mHEMT process; metamorphic high electron mobility transistor process; radio frequency filter; size 0.13 mum; Impedance matching; Loss measurement; MMICs; Mixers; Power harmonic filters; Radio frequency; mHEMTs; MMIC mixers; MMICs; Marchand balun; Satellite communication onboard systems; sub-harmonic;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave and RF Conference (IMaRC), 2014 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Bangalore

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMaRC.2014.7039024

Filename

7039024